Catalyst development for tar reduction in biomass gasification: Recent progress and the way forward

Abstract

Biomass valorization via catalytic gasification is a potential technology for commercizalization to industrial scale. However, the generated tar during biomass valorization posing numerous problems to the overall reaction process. Thus, catalytic tar removal via reforming, cracking and allied processes was among the priority areas to researchers in the recent decades. This paper reports new updates on the areas of catalyst development for tar reduction. The catalyst survey include metallic and metal-promoted materials, nano-structured systems, mesoporous supports like zeolites and oxides, group IA and IIA compounds and natural catalysts based on dolomite, palygorskite, olivine, ilmenite, goethite and their modified derivatives. The influence of catalyst properties and parameters such as reaction conditions, catalyst preparation procedures and feedstock nature on the overall activity/selectivity/stability properties were simultaneously discussed. This paper not only cover to model compounds, but also explore to real biomass-derived tar for consistency. The area that require further investigation was identified in the last part of this review.

Keywords: Biomass gasification; Catalyst activity; Catalyst development; Tar reduction.